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Ask HN: Can you help me to come up with app ideas for my webdev portfolio?

6 points by rayalez ↗ HN
Hey, everyone!

I'm learning web development(node/ember), and thinking about what apps should I build to practice, and I'm really stuck, I can't come up with anything that would be worth building.

Can you help me out? What do you do in these situations? Do you have any ideas for apps that you would like to see built?

8 comments

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kaa2102
Check out w3schools.com to see snippets of code to do specific things. Sites like STackoverflow and PHP.net are also helpful if you get stuck trying to solve a common problem.

A major bonus and challenge is that the sky is the limits with development. On one hand, it's important to learn what you can do AND figure out how to break projects down into small bits and pieces.

Visuals HTML5, CSS Dynamic Visuals: Javascript, JSON, Node.JS Browser Storage: WebSQL, Local Storage Data Storage: SQL, MySQL Server-side scripting: PHP, ASP, Python, Ruby, Java, C++

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jklein11
I think the conventional wisdom is to scratch your own itch. Figure out something that is annoying or difficult to do and then figure out a way that automating some of the steps could make your life easier. This could start as an awesome product to show employers or possibly a way to make a couple of bucks on the side.
egg555
If its just for Portfolio building and practice do this: Code a client for any API (any really). Then crawl the site, do some interesting statistics and make them available as an interaktive Website/Chart. These projects are always fünf. And Ehen your just starting out the difficulty should be ok

(written from my mobile, so PLZ no grammar autocorrect hatte)

bnejad
Blog, CMS, Twitter clone, news aggregator(a la reddit, hn), stack overflow style q/a website, forum(like vbulletin).

Other options might be utilizing another companies API like the google maps api or similar.

srameshc
I would recommend building a Twitter clone if its just for learning and fun.
redmaverick
For Portfolio and Practice:

1. Reddit Clone

2. Blog

3. To do List

4. Forums

5. Twitter Clone

Ideas for apps:(Variation of the above 5)

1. SnapTweets(Twitter Clone): Disappearing tweets, as soon as you receive a tweet, it starts self destructing in 10 seconds

2. Crowdbased TLDR(Reddit Clone): Yesterday on hn, someone complained about having to read a longgg article (The Marc Andreessen one). Wouldn't it be nice if we can upvote the best tldr to the top. That way we can all save time.

3. Task Predictor: I will log my efforts every hour on the UI. After a few days worth of data, your web app should start predicting the likelihood of me doing a task at any given moment. i.e Today, I am planning to write 1000 lines of code starting from 7:00 pm. Your app should notify me that (at 7:00 pm) the likelihood of me watching another episode of lost/prison break is 100%. This awareness should help break my current behavior pattern.